When you deposit money into your bank account, you hope that it is safe.
And when you deal with senior bank employees, you hope that they too have your best interests at heart.
But the Cape Town Regional Court has found to the contrary, after Darlene Harrison defrauded a bank of more than R5,2 million.
Darlene (49) defrauded the bank and blamed her actions on a dating scam or ‘419’ scam, in which she was duped into transferring monies to bank accounts to assist ‘the boyfriend’ in his business venture.
She was convicted on 16 counts of fraud.
She was employed at Nedbank, as an administrator in the Operations Centre and Investments Management and her responsibilities included capturing, releasing, and processing investment funds on instructions of clients who held investment savings accounts with the bank.
Between 26 May 2015 and 2 November 2015, she fraudulently processed and released funds from investment accounts to external third-party bank accounts of people or beneficiaries who did not hold investment savings accounts with the bank. These transactions were real-time transactions and were payable immediately.
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On 2 November 2015, she processed two consecutive transactions of R1,2m.
This immediately raised suspicion with the bank’s fraud department.
A senior member of the branch where she worked was asked to review the transactions. An investigation that followed revealed that several other fraudulent transactions had occurred between 26 May 2015 and 2 November 2015.
An extensive internal Nedbank investigation, which involved interviewing several staff members who worked hand in hand with the accused, further revealed that she was the one who had committed the fraud by transferring investment monies into third-party external bank accounts of people or persons who did not hold investment monies with Nedbank and who were not entitled to the monies. The person at the time she believed to have been her boyfriend.
Advocate Andy Hess told the court that during an interview with the bank’s investigators, Darlene made several admissions including admitting that she processed the fraudulent transactions and processed fraudulent documents to support those transactions.
In the process, she used her colleagues to approve these fraudulent documents, whilst knowing that they were forged. She admitted that these transactions were processed to these accounts for the benefit of a person who, at the time, she believed to be her boyfriend and from whom she would ultimately also benefit.
However, during the trial, Darlene pleaded not guilty to all counts. Advocate Hess called several witnesses, who included her colleagues and the bank’s fraud investigators, as she made no formal admissions and challenged the State to prove its case.
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Darlene further challenged the confession she made to Nedbank fraud investigators. A trial within a trial was held wherein the court decided that the confession made to Nedbank fraud investigators was admissible.
She did not testify in her defence or mitigation of sentence and in determining her guilt, the court considered all the oral evidence presented and in addition accepted the confession made by the accused in the form of a statement in her handwriting and recorded on video to Nedbank fraud investigators.
Nedbank suffered a potential loss of R5,2 million and an actual loss of R2,7m. The bank was able to stop the two transactions of R1,2m after it was processed, but before it could be transferred.
Throughout the trial and at the sentencing stage, the accused blamed her colleagues for the fraud, and this impacted them as was displayed during their testimony.
They felt that they were taken advantage of as Darlene used them in the process to commit fraud.
They have worked with her for many years and rightfully trusted her. As a result of her actions. some of them retired immediately.
It is still unclear what the motive was for the fraud, except that the accused confession refers to a dating scam or “419” scam in which she was duped into transferring monies to these bank accounts to assist “the boyfriend” in his business venture.
